


broken

by tmylm



Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: Broken, F/F, Fluff, Seether, bechloe - Freeform, bechloe angst, bechloe fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-09-18 20:21:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20318929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tmylm/pseuds/tmylm
Summary: Double prompt fill for@brihay8“Bechloe... “Broken” by Seether. Beca writes it for Chloe. Happy ending?” and anonymous “they’ve been arguing/ bickering for weeks bc of “anything you want.” but then they make up bc obviously”.Lots of angst, tears and of course a healthy dose of fluff.





	broken

**Author's Note:**

> My apologies if this is confusing to read. There's some time jumps/flashbacks, so hopefully it isn't too all over the place!
> 
> Also, if any of the lyrics are wrong, I'm super sorry. I'd never heard the song before so I'm relying on a YouTube lyric video to help me out here.

Protective arms snake delicately around Beca’s small waist, the scent of Chloe’s familiar perfume almost overpowering the smell of the food cooking on the stove in front of her. Beca doesn’t turn around, she just continues stirring the homemade bolognese sauce. Beca’s head tilts slightly to the side as Chloe’s lips press gently to the soft, pale skin of her neck, and the familiar feeling pulls a natural smile to Beca’s lips.

“Stop, I’m trying to impress you with this fancy dinner,” Beca jokes—spaghetti bolognese? _Super_ fancy. Carefully, she sets her wooden spoon down on the edge of the small saucepan, dainty hands instantly finding their way to Chloe’s bare arms. “I can’t concentrate with you doing that.” In spite of her words, Beca makes no attempt to actually stop her, nor to wriggle free of Chloe’s tender grasp.

“Mm, you always impress me,” Chloe mumbles lazily, lips peppering soft kisses into the crook of Beca’s neck. Her chin rises to rest lightly against Beca’s shoulder, and Beca can see Chloe’s pout from the corner of her eye. “You know I don’t like this song.”

Honestly, Beca hadn’t even been paying attention. She is busy attempting to cook without burning their food, and the random Spotify playlist crooning quietly is really just background noise, nothing to actually listen to. Of course, Chloe drawing her attention to the current song has it flooding into her ears, and Beca’s lips twist into a small, pointed frown, a hand lifting up to settle delicately against Chloe’s cheek.

“So, turn it off,” Beca states simply, turning her face to push a gentle peck to the apple of Chloe’s rosy cheek. “We don’t have to listen to it.”

“But it’s yours.” Chloe’s soft pout intensifies, her lips now jutting right the way out. The sight causes Beca to grin, to want to crane her neck and kiss Chloe’s pout away. “And I never want to turn off your music. It’s conflicting.”

Finally, Beca steadily twists around in Chloe’s arms, her own rising to wrap loosely around her neck. “You’re a dork,” Beca teases playfully, stretching up to place a chaste kiss against Chloe’s soft, inviting lips.

Standing here, with her arms wrapped around Chloe Beale, gazing up into those bright blue eyes that she knows so well, it is a far cry from the dark place Beca had been in when she had written this song. It is really not a time that she likes to think about, but with the reminder radiating through the airwaves, how can she not?

* * *

_I wanted you to know  
_ _That I love the way you laugh  
_ _I wanna hold you high  
_ _And steal your pain away_

Beca writes upbeat songs. Upbeat, oftentimes kind of lovey-dovey, that’s just her brand. Maybe it doesn’t seem very Beca Mitchell; she has always had the alt girl look down, never been one to radiate romantic vibes. But, Beca has known love so strong, so pure, so _sure_, that the words generally come easily to her. Chloe Beale is her muse, she is her inspiration. Writing about Chloe is like… It’s like writing poetry.

And perhaps that is the reason the page in front of her is covered with such sad, empty words right now—even though they are broken up, even though they are not Chloe and Beca anymore, Chloe is still Beca’s muse. Chloe is still poetry. And Beca hates that, she really, really hates it, but she just cannot help it.

_I keep your photograph  
_ _And I know it serves me well  
_ _I wanna hold you high  
_ _And steal your pain away_

_Because I’m broken  
_ _When I’m lonesome  
_ _And I don’t feel right  
_ _When you’re gone away_

Beca reads back over the words. She doesn’t like them. She doesn’t like the way they sound, the message they send. Beca writes chart-toppers for successful musicians. She writes anthems, songs that make people want to get up and dance. There is none of that behind these lyrics, though—none of her usual sound, her usual message. Beca really might as well stick an ‘I’m going through a breakup right now’ post-it over the front cover, because anybody that reads this is going to know. They’re going to know that Beca is broken right now, that she is not whole without her other half, and that really is the last thing she wants.

For years now, she and Chloe have been a team. They met in college, their relationship blossoming quickly. Have they had their rocky patches? Sure. How many relationships are constantly smooth sailing?

But when rocky had become their new normal, they had finally had to accept the fact that that just… Wasn’t okay.

_You’ve gone away  
_ _You don’t feel me here  
_ _Anymore_

Beca tries hard not to think about it, not to let her own sadness consume her every waking moment, but with wounds so fresh, so _painful_, it really is difficult not to. Oftentimes, remembering the good parts of she and Chloe’s time together hurts even more, because Beca longs so badly to have that back again. She longs to go back to a time before every word was laced with venom, every conversation ending in a toxic, deeply-cutting fight.

Things had been good at first. They were young, they were entirely wrapped up in one another and their fresh, new love. Love so fierce that Beca could finally understand all of those dumb romantic comedies Chloe would watch while Beca curled up beside her and pretended not to focus, but absolutely did so anyway.

“That guy is a tool,” Beca would mumble without thought.

“I thought you weren’t paying attention?” Chloe would retort playfully, and despite the fact that Beca couldn’t see her face, she’d be able to _hear_ the smug smile on Chloe’s familiar lips. It would always make Beca roll her eyes and scoff loudly, until Chloe was twisting her body toward her, tugging Beca up carefully into her lap and playfully pecking her frown away…

“You’re daydreaming again, Mitchell.”

The unwelcome voice cutting into her thoughts belongs to her boss. It causes Beca to jump slightly in her seat.

“Sorry,” Beca clears her throat awkwardly, weakly stretching out her arms, “Didn’t get much sleep last night.”

“Seems to be a recurring theme.”

“Yeah.”

Fortunately, the environment Beca works in is very casual. There are higher-ups, but they don’t necessarily act like it, and that’s something Beca needs right now. She doesn’t need anyone breathing down her neck, hurrying her along when she is so caught up inside of her own mind. Beca needs patience, she needs time. And God, she needs Chloe… But she doesn’t have her anymore, and that is the reason the lyrics before her are so sad and so unlike her, because Beca is lost without her muse.

_The worst is over now  
_ _And we can breathe again  
_ _I wanna hold you high  
_ _You steal my pain away_

“Are you and Chloe still coming to the barbecue next weekend?”

The sound of her girlfriend’s name—_ex_-girlfriend—rings loudly in Beca’s ear. It enters her body almost like a punch to the gut, and causes a shooting pain throughout Beca’s very core. Of course she hasn’t told anybody about their breakup yet. The moment she does, that’s when it becomes real, and Beca can’t have that. Beca cannot just accept that this is over.

But it is. They’d yelled and they’d fought, they’d both just grown so _tired_. Beca had herself convinced it was for the best, and she thinks Chloe did, too. But, she’s not so sure anymore. Sitting here, an empty feeling inside her gut, she’s just… She’s not so sure.

It might’ve helped some, if there’d been a fight that ended it all. If there’d been a fire of rage that’d burned them up completely, but there wasn’t, and Beca blinks away the memory of that final, fateful evening.

Only it won’t leave her. It never does.

* * *

Beca knows something is wrong the moment she hears the knock at her front door.

For the last few minutes, she has been going over their last text message exchange, wondering if maybe she had somehow crossed a line. They’re both young adults, they’re trying to navigate the real world, and balancing a healthy relationship on top of all of their individual stress just seems so impossible. It shouldn’t be, but it is, and Beca knows that Chloe knows it, too. She can tell by the look on her face as the door swings slowly open, Chloe looking sullen and entirely disheveled before her.

“This isn’t working,” Chloe whispers barely audibly. Despite the quiet volume, the words seem so loud, so final, that Beca wants to reach up and cover her ears. She doesn’t, though. She just stares, mouth opening and closing soon after, because she doesn’t know what to say.

“Bec,” Chloe presses, her voice cracking mid-word. The vibrant blue of her eyes only intensifies when they’re glazed over with tears the way they are now, and Beca wants nothing more than to reach out and console her. She wants to comfort Chloe, to take her pain away. Chloe’s head shakes, and a solitary tear rolls slowly down her pale cheek in the process. “I love you. I love you so much that it scares me sometimes,” Chloe chokes out, “But you know as well as I do that this isn’t working.”

* * *

“Beca?”

Beca’s head snaps up, vision blurred until she blinks away the mist from her eyes.

“The barbecue?”

“Oh, yeah. Right. Uh, no,” Beca shakes her head quickly, scrambling to find her words. “No, Chloe’s out of town that weekend.”

Although her colleague doesn’t push, doesn’t ask questions, Beca can see the subtle hint of questioning drawing itself onto her features, the way she is wondering if everything is okay.

Beca offers her a forced smile, and nothing else is said.

* * *

It is lunchtime, though the last thing Beca feels like doing is eating. She has barely done any work all morning, though. Usually, she tears through new material like a whirlwind, able to capture the perfect message, the perfect sound with seemingly no effort at all. This morning, though, all she has done is repeatedly read over her newest piece, the one she is supposed to submit sometime soon to go out to a professional musician to release to the world. She has hated what she has read every single time.

_There’s so much left to learn  
_ _And no one left to fight  
_ _I wanna hold you high  
_ _And steal your pain away_

_‘Cause I’m broken  
_ _When I’m open  
_ _And I don’t feel like I am strong enough_

_‘Cause I’m broken  
_ _When I’m lonesome  
_ _And I don’t feel right when you’re gone away_

Normally, Beca’s mind is her most important tool, it is her key to success. All of her music comes from there, it’s literally her money-maker. But it is something she cannot be left alone with anymore, not if she doesn’t want to do something she’ll regret.

But, as she stares at her phone, at the contact picture of Chloe Beale pressing a kiss to her cheek as a tinge of pink overtakes Beca’s pale skin beneath the touch of her lips—a picture she should most likely change—she wonders if maybe, just maybe, _not_ hitting that call button is the thing she will come to regret the most.

Uncharacteristically, Beca decides to be bold. She decides to tap her thumb against her screen, and lifts her phone up to her ear, the sound of it ringing causing a shiver throughout her spine.

And then she gets Chloe’s voicemail, and Beca knows she should hang up. Beca knows she should finish up her coffee and head back to work to finish her day, but she doesn’t. Her hand just won’t move, won’t pull the phone away from its position pressed up against her face.

In fact, she doesn’t even want it to.

“Hey,” Beca finally says as coolly as she can manage, her tongue darting out to lick over her dry lips. “Uh, it’s me. Beca.” _She knows who you are, idiot_, Beca thinks to herself as her eyes squeeze shut, her heart beating hard inside of her chest. “Listen, I don’t know why I’m calling, and I don’t know if you’ll even hear this. But it’s been a week now, Chloe, and I don’t know how to accept that this is really over.” Beca clears her throat somewhat awkwardly, hoping the way her voice cracks is subtle enough not to come across over the recording. “I take it back, okay? Every crappy thing I’ve ever said. Putting my work first, saying you put yours first… I take it all back. Because you’re everything, Chloe. You’re everything, and I just need us to be okay again.” Beca’s tired-sounding voice quietens, conviction fading, until she is whispering into the phone. “I miss you… I miss us.”

That’s enough now, Beca thinks. It’s enough.

* * *

The work day is over too quickly.

Beca doesn’t want to go back to her apartment, to sitting alone with her thoughts and constant reminders of Chloe Beale. While they have yet to take the step to living together—a step it seems they will never even get the chance to take now—there are countless items of Chloe’s dotted all over Beca’s apartment. In turn, Beca’s things litter Chloe’s place, too.

And so she doesn’t, she doesn’t go home. Instead, Beca finds things to do, ways to keep herself occupied, until the sun is setting and there is a dark blanket weighing heavily over the city.

Pretty fitting really, Beca thinks. It kind of just seems like her life right now.

It is late evening before she arrives home, faded boots dragging lazily along the sidewalk. Beca is in her own world, the same way she always is lately. So much so that she doesn’t even notice the figure sitting soundly on her stoop, not until she hears that familiar voice breaking into the madness that is her mind.

“You miss me?”

Beca’s heavy lids turn to the lightest of feathers, shooting open to quickly locate the source. It is a voice she recognizes, one that sends so many feelings soaring through her body. And then her gaze is landing on Chloe Beale, and Beca almost freezes up completely.

“You think that’s all it takes? A voicemail saying that you miss me?” Chloe questions dryly, her tone a mixture of confusion and what Beca perceives as frustration. “It doesn’t work like that, Beca.”

Their breakup had been no one person’s fault. They were both to blame, both allowed their hectic lives to take over, both said stupid things that they didn’t necessarily mean but had put out into the universe anyway. So, Beca is a little confused as to why this suddenly seems like it is entirely her problem to fix, like she is the one who’s supposed to know what to do to make it right.

It occurs to her quickly that maybe Chloe is just as messed up about all of this as she is. Just as confused, just as broken. And like Beca, Chloe doesn’t know how to handle it, either.

“Can we not do this out here? I have neighbors,” Beca relents, her tone tired and deflated. She looks almost pleadingly from Chloe and to the door, before Chloe rises from her spot, motioning Beca to lead the way.

Neither speaks again until they’re inside and Beca has switched on the light. The brightness is almost blinding in comparison to the dull, starless evening outside.

“I shouldn’t have sent it,” Beca says, motioning to the phone in Chloe’s hand. “The voicemail. I shouldn’t have called, I just—”

“You just miss me.” Chloe finishes the thought for her. Beca simply blinks in her direction, looking at Chloe with sad eyes that she tries so hard to disguise.

Beca barely recognizes her own voice as she continues.

“What do you want me to say, Chloe?” Beca swallows back her emotions. “That I’m sorry? That I take everything back? Because I already said all of that. I already tried that. I don’t know what you want from me here.” Beca doesn’t mean to speak in a raised tone of voice, but she can’t help it. Her emotions are definitely not in any kind of order around Chloe anymore. She is tired and she is sad, she is _angry_, and God, she just misses Chloe. She misses Chloe so fucking badly.

Beca’s voice is small as she continues, her tone back to quiet and defeated. “What am I supposed to do?” She asks, blue eyes pleading once again. “Tell me and I’ll do it. Tell me how to fix us and I’ll fix us, but I don’t know how.”

Usually, Beca can read Chloe. She knows her better than anybody. In fact, she is pretty sure she knows Chloe Beale better than Chloe even knows herself. But right now, Beca can’t read her. She cannot decipher Chloe’s emotions or put her finger on her feelings, because Chloe is just staring, just looking at her with those same sad eyes—the ones that have drawn her in so many times before.

“I miss you, too,” Chloe finally admits, whispered words cracked and choked up. Chloe has always been much more free with her feelings, much less embarrassed to show the world that she is not in fact a robot, and that she has real, human emotions. Unlike Beca, who does all she can to hold hers in, to never allow herself to be vulnerable.

Around everybody but Chloe, anyway.

“I miss you,” Chloe echoes quietly, her head nodding softly. “I do, and I wish that I could say let’s just forget about this last week, let’s forget about all of those stupid fights and let’s just be us again, but—”

Quickly, Beca cuts into her rant. “So say it.” Almost cautiously, she takes the smallest of steps closer, almost surprised when Chloe doesn’t retreat back. “Say that we can forget about all of that, and we can just be us again.”

Chloe shakes her head, auburn curls bobbing across her shoulders. “It doesn’t work like that either, though. The way things were going before, the way we were fighting and just being so mean to each other, none of that was healthy, Bec. I want us to work it out, I want us to fix this, but we have to be grown ups about this. We have to be adults, and we’ve just been acting like two stupid kids.” Chloe’s head shakes softly once more. “This isn’t a high school relationship, Beca. It isn’t a college relationship. It’s you and me, it’s the real world and we have to start realizing that.”

“I do realize it,” Beca says defensively, hesitating for the briefest of moments, before a hand reaches forward to ghost cautiously along Chloe’s. It is surprising to her, the way she feels Chloe’s slender fingers squeezing through the gaps in her own, the way their hands connect so naturally, the way Chloe doesn’t pull away.

“Can we fix this?” Beca dares herself to ask, her voice jumping up an octave mid-word.

There is more to say. There is more to work on. There is a lot to do, in fact, before this can go back to the way it was, before they can go back to being them again.

But Chloe doesn’t do anything. She doesn’t say anything. She just stares, until finally she is gently nodding her head. In that one quick moment, with that one small action, Beca just… Beca knows they are going to be okay.

* * *

“That was such a stupid week, huh?” Chloe frowns distractedly, clearly in her own head now, too. Although Beca’s arms are comfortably looped around Chloe’s neck, she finally breaks the contact, finally pulls back to Chloe’s open, mild disappointment.

“What are you doing?” Chloe’s voice sounds from behind her as Beca makes her way swiftly over to the computer, skipping it onto the next song.

The expression on Chloe’s pale face is much softer once Beca turns back around. She notes that there is a small smile tugging at Chloe’s lips by the time Beca is standing in front of her again.

“There,” Beca murmurs, arms reaching up to take their spot back around Chloe’s neck. Long arms wrap around her waist, the two of them completely tied up in one another right there in their kitchen. Beca stretches up some, lips brushing delicately against Chloe’s. Instantly, Chloe seems to relax almost dreamily into the kiss. “You don’t ever have to think about that week again.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm always accepting prompts via [tumblr](http://snowbritt.tumblr.com)!


End file.
